HP means to make its customers look twice at price this
year while
evaluating HP 3000 investments, adding a new low-end model to
the 9x9 line at the same time it makes its spring discounts an
institutional policy.

The announcements at HP World also included the first HP
3000
powered by the PA-8200 RISC processor, currently the
fastest chip
installed on HP business servers. The new Series 989 requires
MPE/iX 5.5 PowerPatch 5 to deliver its 36-percent performance
increase over the Series 979. Down on the low end, a new Series
929 is being offered as the biggest lure yet to draw owners of
older 3000s toward the newer iron.

The new hardware introductions signal the end of sales
life for
the older Series 969 systems without the fat cache
processor boards.
These are known as the Series 969/100, /200, /300 and /400. HP
will stop selling the models as of September 1, realizing the
9x9 product line is too complex to retain all existing
models.

New low-end on 9x9s

HP is calling its new Series 929KS/020 a midrange
system, but
its priced at just $20,000 for hardware, before
adding MPE/iX
and databases. Thats $10,000 less than the Series
939/020. HP
reports the new system, which uses a PA-7200 processor, is 18
percent faster than a Series 968. HP hopes to use the
newest 9x9
system to encourage upgrades from the upper ends of the 9x8
range.

HP said the 929 uses the same PA-7200 processor as the
Series
939 and 969 systems, with its clock speed reduced to 60
MHz. Series
969 systems run at 120 MHz and the 939s run at 72 MHz. The new
bottom of the midrange HP 3000s only comes in a
single-processor
configuration, like its Series 939/020 cousin. But
customers can
install board upgrades in a 929 to take it all the way to the
newest Series 989. HP said the upgrade path delivers a
900-percent
performance increase from the lowest end to the 989s.

A Series 929 with 64 users on MPE/iX and an IMAGE/SQL
database
will cost $72,717, but only if youre buying one new.
Upgrades
to this new system will enjoy a special 45-percent rebate off
part of that purchase  the cost of bundled software.
Its evidence
that HP has begun to institutionalize the discounts of this
springs
upgrade promotion.

With the box-swap rebate, the 929/020 will be
priced similarly
to the 968 price prior to August 1, Snow said,
and get a significant
performance increase.

The arrival of the Series 929 doesnt signal the
departure of
the Series 939, Snow added. We see the 939 as a very
attractive
price/performance point within the product line, he
said. Our
forecasts show significant sales of the 939. The 939
runs about
one-third faster than the 929 by HPs measurements. HP
means to
cannibalize the Series 968 with the introduction of the
929.

Newbeefy top-end to midrange

The new Series 989KS comes in 1-, 2-, 4- and 6-way
models, using
a 200MHz PA-8200 processor, the fastest chip currently powering
HP business servers. The long-anticipated Bravehawk, which
customers
have been asking for all through July, is supposed to offer
mainframe-level
performance in the midrange form factor, according to
HP officials.
External I/O card cages, promised last year and now finally
arriving
for 9x9 customers, will let a 989 site use up to 32 IO
slots and
4 IO backplanes.

The system takes its power surge over the the 979s
numbers from
bigger caches, which are double the size of the 2Mb located off
the 979 processors PA-8000 chip. The power ratings of
the 989s
appear to make HPs case for the system being
considered in a
mainframe category. HPs newest rankings show all the
models of
the 989 lineup topping Emerald-class Series 997 models with the
same number of processors.

HP reduced the number of IO slots in the 989 because it
wanted
to create space for two extra processor boards. The new
processor
boards dont plug into the same space, but they give
the 989 a
way to provide two more processors than any other system in the
9x9 line.

HP also announced that its extending the number of
processors
for the 997 Series of HP 3000s, effective with the PowerPatch
5 release of MPE/iX. 5.5. These largest HP 3000s will now
accept
6-way and 8-way processor configurations thanks to the new
software
release. HP reported that its new top-end 997/800 HP 3000s
would
offer 31 percent more performance than the Series 997/500, the
previous top of the lineup.

Our intention for next year is to support 10- and
12-way systems,
once we do some tuning in the operating system, Snow
said. HP
will populate those extra boards with PA-8000 chips, he
added

These 12-way versions of the 997 systems will
continue to eke
out a little more performance of the next version of
989, Snow
said. If youre looking for that last little bit
of performance,
the 997 is going to give it to you. HP will continue
to charge
a bit of a premium for the IO expansion in the
future with 99x
systems, he added.